Page 24 of Somewhere Along The Way (Mackinnon #3)

“Why do you think I wanted to marry you when I could have had countless others? I found that besides being quite bonny, you were fresh and innocent and quite sheltered. It was your lack of tarnish, your freshness that first attracted and held me. Much as I understand your yearning for a younger man, I can’t bring myself to give you up.

I don’t know if you will believe me when I say this, but it isn’t my desire to make you unhappy or cause you hurt.

What I want is to find some way to make you happy about our approaching marriage.

Your father is an honorable man. I am sure he can persuade you to see the way of it, as well as to put an end to that young pup’s infatuation.

Unfortunately, I find I am very short of patience when it comes to seeing another man stalking you. ” He dropped his hand.

“But…”

“One week,” he said, cutting her off. “I will return in one week to accompany you and your family on their tour of Scotland. I expect to see your thoughts and your loyalties in order at that time.”

One moment he was standing there telling her what he expected. The next moment he was gone.

Immediately the room seemed to take on the luster of a fat teardrop; all Annabella wanted to do was to go off by herself and cry.

All of a sudden the voluminous weight of the clothing she had on was too much, the layers of petticoats, the heavy silk flounces of her gown, the tightly laced corset with its whalebone stays that gouged into her flesh.

Even the flowers in her hair seemed weighted with lead, their burden causing her head to throb impatiently.

She saw her mother across the way and headed in her direction, then checked herself, deciding against it.

Her mother was no fool. She would see her eyes as too bright, her face as too pale.

Accepting a glass of punch from a passing servant, she joined a group of young girls her age whom she had met earlier.

She stood on the fringe and feigned interest in their conversation.

Now and then she interjected a thought, her mind, in reality, miles and miles away.

Her breeding told her to enjoy the evening and not let anything Huntly had said spoil it, but another part of her wanted nothing more than to get away. How she yearned to go to her room and slip between the cool, comforting layers of her sheets and lose herself in the unburdened escape of sleep.

She finished the glass, discovering too late that it was champagne, not punch, that she had taken from the passing servant.

Perhaps that was for the best. Feeling a bit lightheaded, she thought about what could happen if Huntly spoke to her father.

My father might move the date of the wedding forward He might send me too a convent to spend the coming months in seclusion.

He might disown me. He might give me a stern lecture, telling me I have one more chance and I had better not spoil it.

She knew that above all her father loved her, but that only served to add to the already unbearable weight of her feelings of ingratitude that hung heavy upon her shoulders like a necklace of guilt.

While Annabella was feeling at her lowest, Ross was finishing a dance with a fresh-faced young girl named Maeve, who was as light on her feet as she was with her chatter.

Walking Maeve back to her friends, he caught sight of Annabella across the room.

It struck him that she appeared to have stepped inside herself and gone into a world of her own, so removed did she seem from everything that went on about her.

He considered going to her and making some light conversation with her, but something held him back.

Lifting a drink off a passing tray held aloft by a confident servant who moved briskly through the crowd, he found a quiet place near the corner where he could do what had interested him all evening: watch Annabella.

She was far too young to bury herself beneath the weight of misery, for it must be misery or some similar affliction that had robbed her lovely face of its rose petal color.

He searched the room but didn’t see Huntly, although he had seen him leave her after their last dance.

Was it her fear or dread of her betrothed, of her impending marriage, that brought such sadness to her face?

His brief conversation with Huntly had made him more than aware of the kind of future that awaited her with a man of his caliber, and he could imagine how a young woman with her whole future before her could feel her world coming to an end with the prospect of marriage to a man old enough to be her father.

It was the lingering hint of sadness that drew him, that called him to her as no promise of a night of loving between a pair of warm and willing thighs had ever done.

It was as if he had taken a drink from a glass that was drugged, and he fought the urge to go to her and take her in his arms.

He watched her leave the ballroom. It was the thought of taking her in his arms and offering her comfort, and nothing more, that drove him from the room, seeking her—not the thought of what he might do once he found her.

Annabella had as her final destination her bedchamber, but she didn’t want to attract a lot of attention in getting there.

Her head pained her, she felt old, worn, and completely exhausted, and one more crumb added to that cake was the fact that all of Huntly’s talk about her father had frightened her.

She didn’t want to be a burden to her father, or a source of humiliation for him.

How she wished she could simply lose her mind, and her obligations along with it.

Hurrying down what seemed the longest of corridors, she was anxious to reach the great staircase and make her way to her room unseen.

Her head down, her feet skimmed along the stone floor.

Suddenly a door creaked open and she thumped against the Earl of Huntly’s chest. Two men and two King Charles spaniels followed, the dogs yelping at his heels.

“Oh,” she said, working herself out of the grip that clamped like fangs into her arms.

“If I didn’t know better, I would think you weren’t having a good time,” Huntly said. “Don’t stand there wringing your hands and looking guilty, you silly chit. Tell me where you were going in such a hurry.”

“Nowhere…to my room.”

“Well, which is it? Nowhere? Or your room?”

The men laughed and that sent the dogs into another yelping frenzy. Huntly put his palm to her forehead. She glanced at the two men, then at the earl. She knew he was testing her. This time she knew better than to pull away.

He smiled. “Pleading a headache, are you?”

One of the men laughed. “That usually comes after the bedding, doesn’t it, Huntly?”

“Shut up, you fool.”

The two men laughed and the dogs began running in circles, yapping and barking. Annabella felt sick.

“I don’t think your headache will fare any better in your room than it does down here,” Huntly went on. “Go into the drawing room and wait for me. I’ll have someone bring you some herb tea.”

“I have some powders in my room. They work much faster than herb tea. I’ll just run up there and…” She started around him when Huntly’s hand clamped around her arm.

“I wouldn’t hear of it, sweeting—your going up there to suffer all alone.”

The two men snickered and Huntly shot them a silencing glare.

“If you insist on the powders, I’ll go to your room and get them from your maid. Betty, isn’t it?”

She nodded.

“You wait for me in the drawing room.”

Annabella knew when she had been dismissed, and the joy of getting away from him had her galloping heart pumping so much blood into her body she was feeling dizzy from the effect.

Anxious to get away from him, something fortifying shooting into her system, Annabella moved faster than she thought possible.

She scampered into the drawing room, whipping the door shut behind her.

Leaning back against the door, she almost swooned with relief as she closed her eyes and waited for her heart to cease its frantic beating.

She cursed herself for being such a coward and so hen-hearted.

She hadn’t felt this dizzy since the day she ate too many raisins plumped in a sea of warm clover honey and French brandy.

The sound of Huntly’s laughter reached her ears.

Mentally, she placed him on the same list with lizards, snails, spidery things, and sheep’s offal—only lower.

She wished she had the courage to march back out there in a spirit of high scorn and trumpet her loathing of him, demanding his apology, and when he gave it, announce her refusal to marry him.

She didn’t, of course. I’ll give you something to laugh about, you… you dog lover. Dog lover?

Desperation filled her. Dog lover. Here she was, unable to call him something scathing, even in her mind.

Wishing she had more backbone and knowing wishing didn’t make it so, Annabella went to the tapestry-covered sofa and sat down to wait for Huntly.

The more she thought about it, the more she decided it wasn’t that she didn’t have backbone, she was simply too shy to use it.

How she wished she could simply get up and leave.

Why can’t you? Huntly will be furious. So? Let him be furious.

Overcoming her well-indoctrinated reluctance toward disobedience, she shot to her feet and looked around the room.

There was no way she could go to her room now, for Huntly would be there.

Likewise, he would come into the ballroom if she went there.

There was no other place to go. She would have to wait here.

Perhaps she could lock the door and claim it was an accident that occurred before she fell asleep waiting for him on the sofa.

Her weak knees trembled as she moved to the door. She pressed her ear against the wood and listened. The men were still talking.